The Dorothy Cotton Institute (DCI) was founded in 2008 to continue and expand on the legacy and spirit of her life’s work. Dorothy wanted the work of the DCI to be relevant to contemporary issues and to bring visibility to 21st century efforts for justice and freedom, social transformation and Beloved Community. From a seed idea for a fellowship in her name, our vision grew to an institute, and DCI’s taproot branched from civil rights to global human rights leadership.
Although Dorothy worked as a college administrator for nine years, she often said privately that if we had waited for academia to do something about racial apartheid in the US, we never would have had a civil rights movement. She was asked several times to speak with groups of students who were protesting at Cornell’s Day Hall. During the Anti-Apartheid movement, Dorothy walked over to students were involved in a sit-in, calling for Cornell to divest from South Africa, smiled, and asked the students “Why aren’t you singing?” and sing they did!
Dorothy enjoyed engaging with young people and educators around the country about civil rights and social justice, receiving many requests from college students seeking interviews or help with dissertations. As a guest lecturer and powerful keynote speaker she was much in demand; she spoke several times a year at colleges and conferences, gave commencement addresses, and attended the annual Congressional pilgrimage march from Selma to Montgomery. She was generous with her attention and prepared her presentations and remarks thoughtfully, filling her books with post-its and covering her materials with handwritten notes, lyrics, and quotes to share from poems and wisdom teachers.
Dorothy was vivacious, ethical, an avid reader and a life-long learner. She spent many hours working with us to articulate DCI’s values, and to re-design the Citizenship Education Program for the 21st Century, and she co-led those workshops with us, to the delight of our participants. She remained passionately engaged by current events throughout her life, asking what we could do to address the abuses that concerned her: genocide, war, violence against women and children, and mass incarceration. She wanted to find out how people who’d been mortal enemies came to forgive one another and create new endeavors together. Building Beloved Community was a touchstone. Even in the last two months of her life, she was teaching local organizers of the new Poor People’s Campaign freedom songs from the Civil Rights Movement, songs that build courage and solidarity. Deeply committed to nonviolence as a way of life, she saw it as neither passivity nor a mere tactic, but as Satyagraha— the Force which is born of holding onto Truth and Love. Nonviolence requires self-discipline, bravery, compassion, and conscience. Dorothy shared Martin Luther King’s conviction that “the end is preexistent in the means…and that destructive means cannot bring about constructive ends.” Her lifework proved that people can find the power within ourselves to challenge injustice and make positive change. She encouraged us to believe in ourselves, speak up, be bold and fully engaged, exercise our rights and responsibilities, and to stop waiting for somebody else to follow or to make things better. It’s truly up to us!
© Dorothy Cotton Institute 2018, with permission